Captain America #3 Review

Ta-Nehisi Coates is taking his opportunity to write Captain America to do exactly what you would expect: make an artistic critique of the real-world’s political spectrum through the lens of a world where the stakes, fortunately, aren’t real.

In a post-Secret Empire world, Captain America’s lost and looking for familiar ground. In Captain America #3, he finds that firm footing amonng Wakandans, alongside T’Challa and Okoye.

The issue starts with an undercover Rogers visiting a town in what can only be described as “middle America.” After a complete government takeover, you’d expect these to be the places hit the hardest. But, interestingly enough, the opposite has happened. When Hydra took over, it used it’s fascist tactics to manipulate these previously vulnerable and forgotten people into a sense of loyalty through free healthcare, a booming economy, and lower crime rates. For some, this is what they’d always wanted. But while life is seemingly perfect for these people, there was another population in the country whose lives were being torn apart by these very same “saviors.”

As if that dichotomy didn’t already prove that things were too good to be true, Wakandan intelligence was able to discover a link between a wealthy corporation, the current government structure, and the constant creation of hundreds of Nuke clones that are being used as terrorists.

This story of Captain America is looking like it’ll be a slow burn. Which makes sense given that we’re coming right out of a universe-wide event that heavily featured Captain America. You don’t just walk out of that like nothing happened. Fortunately, Coates got to play with characters from the other Marvel series he’s writing and we get to see some plot progression after the last two issues were largely devoted to world-building. T’Challa, Okoye, and Steve Rogers are a great trio to watch and hopefully we’ll be treated to this team-up for a few more issues.